we speak different languages we fight for different things that's fine but we all stick up for freedom freedom of speech and freedom of press. giving freedom of choice global news that matters. made for mines. topic and nobody i write for children but adults are welcome to read my books too that makes me a bit of an literary out concert just like children but i live with that kind of with it.

kind of is a labyrinth this is some bird drama about fascism betrayal and magic by the mexican filmmaker guillermo del toro and it's clearly a focus favorite film. for the author it has all the ingredients of good fantasy magic depth as well as a clear underlying stance. when guillermo del toro asked her whether she would turn his film into a book she hesitated at 1st but then she accepted the offer and that turned into pan's labyrinth a labyrinth of the fallen. that's why do you think that was such

a delightful experience and of course it was a crazy project yakked. i didn't think it could be done who would read a book based on a film they're always bad. and the poem is so amazing that i can imagine transforming it into words on our backs when someone gives you an impossible task you have no choice right. it's wonderful to hear the things that book has expanded a universe of his film and i had to invent short stories to flesh out the plot and back stories for the characters and that's what he wanted and he didn't give me any instructions he didn't interfere with my writing at all that's highest. i missed and that's why. we met cordelia func in hamburg the last stop on her tour of germany to promote the book she lives here with her family for a long time before moving to los angeles in 2005 hamburg is also where her career as a writer began. we

1st met her nearly a phone call in hamburg 12 years ago just after the publication of the 3rd volume of her in car trilogy that was the series that launched her international career she's meanwhile written more than 70 books they've been translated into 50 languages and have sold more than 26000000 copies. in cart was turned into a hollywood film the chico produced another unusual experience for the author. recently she fulfilled a long cherished dream and bought an avocado farm in malibu today cordelia funk is one of the most successful fantasy writers in the world she has fans everywhere and not all of them are children and young people. express not in any amount but i remember going to india and all of

a sudden all these people between the age of 24 and 30 were asking if they could have me up to you know and they sang to me saying that i was their child you can type in in. out of there i have the same thing in germany a very how can that be in the book the reality in india is so different and because and yet my books are in fact shaped by german reality or american reality and not by reality in india for me it's a question that's still a big mystery how he was when i was in guadalajara mexico how i found myself weeping and one of the and in fact the readers there understood exactly what i was writing about every question they asked me why give the depth of understanding that i've rarely encountered anywhere else on time to me it seems like that in places or countries where life isn't always easy where people are still forced to grapple with those big questions our guilt good and evil violence via all the existential questions you often find that people have

a very profound understanding of literature and it has firsthand political for their literature is not just entertainment and. got her start illustrating children's books more than 30 years ago she soon realized that she wanted to write to. a fancy out of many of those stories didn't match my pictures or were just very realistic at the time in germany fantasy was very much looked down upon it's an interesting phenomenon in germany we tend to distance ourselves from our history of fantasy or from e.t.a. hoffmann of the grimm's fairy tales of one comes from making money and the doctors at the time writing fantasy was frowned upon to write and yet there's a long tradition in on endless very long and usual when i tell english journalists about this they say but your great fantasy storytellers are such a tale out not all of her books are fantasy in 1903 she wrote the 1st while chick spoke about a gang of girls and their rivalry with

a gang of boys and their encounters with occasionally aggravating adult. they're now 5 in the series and 3 have been filmed. in this one the. girls and boys are now teenagers dealing with the emotional turmoil of romance. the film has been praised for taking the emotional lives of their young protagonists seriously as have the books. ghost hunters is a fantasy series about 2 boys and a girl who fight against who would have guessed ghosts it's also been adapted for the screen. you were ready for to go so. hands off mississippi which was published in german in 1997 and turned into a film a decade later seems almost old fashioned by comparison. to. it's also about a gang of kids. shooting once easy. to find

a shady character lurking about the number i'm no marsupial and yeah try to. catch up on my computer to read up on the audience mood since tomorrow. i. featuring a lot of slapstick and a deal like summer scenery this is ranked among the best cordelia from the adaptations to. our. at the start of her career cornelia funke i had to write 3 or 4 books a year to support her family all of them were a hit in germany. her international breakthrough came with the thief lord a fast paced novel about growing up and sticking together. the main protagonist is scipio the leader of a gang of orphans in venice who go through

a bunch of adventures together. them on the miss 100 when a child who has suffered abuse or deprivation reads a bit like this the flawed other children tell me they never had a family up but they read the book and suddenly understood what it must feel like mine that a book has given the child a kind of safe space a space they've never experienced but they can still find some of their own reality and a comment that children don't want false illusions i can't take them seriously. when i get letters like this from readers i realize i'm also talking about the terrible things about our world that has to be a part of a fantasy writer and. the thief lord was the 1st of cordelia focus books to be translated into english that was in 2000 to 3 years later she was included on time

magazine's list of the world's 100 most influential people alongside bill clinton nelson mandela and the dalai lama. she had one fans around the world and a few critics. a common fan i received a letter from a young fan who said she'd love to thier flawed leave it in but why was there only one girl linux and then. i felt really guilty. i thought look you've been doing the same as all women we like boys so we write about boys and turn them into the heroes of our stories. instead of saying i'm a female writer what and i have a female heroine as a fish so i promised the reader that my next hero would be a girl and that was made in current in 10 knots is a lot of work as that happened often you know that readers young ones are older one is have made suggestions. or you as is yes for example in my chick series

a reader gross asking to see a shot his father that happens every so often and it can be very inspiring and so on the readers get so immersed in the worlds i've created i often say that i hear my readers footsteps and heart beats in those worlds and sometimes i love them so passionately that they almost know more about them than i do as the 1st made up of his. in-car turned cornelli a phone call into one of the world's best known fantasy authors. in 2008 the magical tale about maggie and her father moas adapted by hollywood with a big budget and special effects to match. making and mo have an unusual gift they can bring fictional characters to life but in return real people have to take their place that happened to make his mother of all grown up. and that night we were in the library. so i opened

a copy book we just bought. a card. for several chapters about nothing happened. and it appeared out of nowhere. book the purpose behind it working for a new book tour. my boys brought them out your voice brought them out of the book and your mother went to. the top works. father and daughter set off to do everything to find her experiencing countless adventures involving lots of magic but violence to. cornelia didn't only want to write a gripping book she wanted to send out a political message. in one of the themes of income that is fascism not the gang in the mountains they're not met v.o.c. they're fascists. they blackmail us without children they blackmail us with their

husbands and our friends insist on them fight and that's what's most terrifying about dictators and fascism and they attack us using the things we're most proud of what we think of as our identity that's what we love most of us believe and they turn us into accomplices that's how fascism operate and that's what i depicted in incarceration intent and house but i didn't call it by its name because i thought it would be more timeless this way if the smartest idea was there was supposed to be a 4th in card book coming out i thought it was a trilogy and that it was over and was published i thought it is probably because illustrating and painting have become more important to me again to get sort of sometimes i draw characters and don't know who they are and then they pop up in my books one is that a new way of working is not yes it is quite nice to at some point i realized oh man there is a new in cart book emerging out of this. it's called the color of revenge and it's

about the struggle between words and images which one is more powerful. it's not idea that's always fascinated me that's called and it's found its way into encounters what does it mean to write all we all written sure and it's a nice way to engage with these ideas. what is stronger the word or the image that question is also explored in pan's labyrinth. the story is set in spain and 9445 years after the fascists won the spanish civil war. it is a battle between good and evil in a world full of violence and horror. a failing of resorts to fantasy to escape reality like in in cart the characters and compass both come alive and take her off to a magical realm than habited by a strange creature. the fawn sends her into dangerous situations that she has to

master on her own. the film is a dark and terrifying world filled with all menace beauty. canadia funk has said she would only write the book if she was allowed to retain the film's horror. for the next and i said i'm not going to change anything in the story i will not make it younger yet and i will not censor it and i will not remove the sexual elements what war against women looks like also named everything he am i put in the film and i won't play down the violence because it's the truth and this is what violence looks like. he doesn't remain to size it he doesn't trivialize over glorify evil that's why i had my again tara. in del totals film there are some terrifying scenes like this one went off alien encounters and eyeless monster in an underground room. after she eats one of the for a bit in fruits the monster rises from its lethargy.

its 1st victims are the fairies that are supposed to accompany and protect a family i was. a family get is set to be the next victim. the monster has it in for all the children of this world. is this new book still appropriate for a young audience with all the brutal scenes and the historical background of spanish fascism.

camellia focus says neither the film nor the book are intended for a specific age group. and she doesn't like being labeled as only a writer for children and young adults even though that can sometimes have its advantage. in mind initially my english publisher once i put it very nicely couldn't do you know what's the difference between an author for children and an order for grownups as i said we know that what's the difference he said the authors were children love the audience or and i think there's something else assisting about the adult book about our time but we find out sometimes they are really ugly rivalries between all says i've never seen that in children's books if it hasn't got there is no solidarity what it's almost like a guilty there's

a lot of love for the chronicles into the city and i think it's wonderful and human of will know about this and that's why i usually say yes i write for children but adults are welcome to read my books too you know that makes me a bit of a literary outcast just like children are right but i can live with that helps and i have a kind of couldn't live so i can only a function sometimes feels that fantasy is underrated as a genre because. i think that there is still a lot of misunderstanding as people say oh it's escapism and all that readers want to live in another world cup's or that's absurd because there is no other world to govern whatever we. even if it's another planet it's always an interpretation of this world and always a love letter to this world. by design this world is what feeds our imaginations what is our only source of inspiration when. and this world is so multifaceted and unbelievable that we can only express a tiny part of this magic idea for tub i was just think as we're sitting on

a planet that speeding past a viable and there is an exploding sun above us somewhere so and there's probably a fly on the wall here watching us in slow motion. to proceed all of this is reality right i think that fantasy just makes that more apparent whereas realistic narratives tend to focus on human reality and often have to do with a very concrete historical moment of guns concrete moment because i don't more one dimensional there are very one dimensional as i'd say we need to find a concept of reality that's a lot more multidimensional is especially at a time when we're destroying pretty much everything that's not human and humane or and just think about it for a moment and you know what was here 15 years ago and what might be left 15 years from now. and our concept of time and space where everything belongs together if we're to really comprehend reality his fantasy makes it easier to ask those big questions decide what's big and important what's evil what's good about you or you

can bring the dead back as go say way shakespeare did you can speak to all those aspects of existence the excess stands on. your bunker often works on several book projects at once. but these days her social projects are just as important especially her artist in residence program. she offers artists from all over the world a chance to stay at her farm for a couple of weeks. in my mind i've always wanted to live in a village together with all my creative friends i have lots of friends who make animated movies or music or they write on the other many of my guests are friends so artists i know often guest and bringing them together i found is even more

exciting than i had imagined it would be special and the whole thing that saved us all some on. living in the united states was another of her dreams. came true for her in 2005 when she moved there with her family. but not quite a year later her husband unexpectedly died nearly a phone call was left alone with their 2 children. however i always loved the u.s. even when i came here on my 1st but because i love how open the people are there and i love the conviction that you can solve any problem on. their way of seeing problems as a challenge not an obstacle that another thing is still an enduring faith in the future that even if it's sometimes hard to find these days. you have and above all i love the friendliness and everyday life and it's not insincere it's very true and genuine. and i've come to love being in

a country of immigrants is that and it's such a colorful and diverse and culturally rich environment that i live in every day in los angeles and $128.00 languages are spoken here interest label and you never know what kind of life story a person might have to tell you about helium scarcely steam and i wouldn't want to miss out on all of that. but american society has been undergoing major changes in recent years. the gap between rich and poor is growing ever wider. countless thousands are living on the streets. racists are growing bolder and flaunting their hatred in public. african americans are trying to defend themselves against violence the protest often end in clashes. battle lines are being drawn and hardening.

and since donald trump took office as president in 2017 the country has become even more divided. as to which and america is what's good about america is of course that it has a very strong tradition of rebellion and not of a beauty and still source about it it was right there right now the resistance is just as strong as the other side. both sides do exist but they do in germany now to it's here and i want to vent here i said immigration is good that's you now at last germany will get a bit more diverse to alert us to is that i could hear that one side got very quiet while the other got a very loud we have this polarization now all over the world to put it just that there are all sorts of things you can do politically and at the moment i'm supporting the lawyers that are trying to protect and help the children the migrant children and the lawyers who are trying to reach the children and support them

a visit here through to you i'd rather be putting my money towards environmental protection but this is what's needed in this political situation i'm very active politically active that's my only consolation of course and then i also live in california the out of control state and federal state. california has introduced strict environmental standards for cars president trump wants them revoked opposition is also strong in california against the trumpet ministrations hard line immigration policy which include expediting the deportation of under. documented immigrants especially from latin america. take the battle is now out in the ohio valley for that california is fighting it and that's why i still like living here. in autumn 2017 cornelia funke a followed her dream of life in the countryside and bought a farm near malibu it's hurt not so little slice of heaven she's got sunshine and

green all year round as long as the bushfires don't come too close. to. the best of all here or away from the big city she finds peace and tranquility. ever returned to germany night it's been you know i'm not someone who goes back and i you know i'm the kind of person who always goes forward and in 5 years i might be living in new zealand but i would never go back if i tried to explain it to children like this take a look at the world and how big it is i spend 45 years in one single country life and that's not all that inspiring i should have tried out a few more. and if i do i hope i'll have the courage and thirst for adventure to try out something totally different once again. in december 2800 cornelia from

could turn 60 she decided it was time to take stock to children who are now adults at a job she enjoys doing and one that's made her world famous how does she view her life and what may yet be to come if she's already achieved everything she'd ever hoped for. that's a victory so it was like this ok it's the last act let's see what you're going to do now 1st of all you hate exercise but you're going to have to do it a bit to stay intact and then the fact that i'm living in the country now has dramatic. it changed my life became the artist in residence project has brought so many changes to my life that is over for that's pretty exciting though the time has come to hand on the battles are to tell myself you've created an accomplishment so much because you don't need to write a 1000 old books perhaps you need to pos on what you've learned so that others can take that test ovide that's. a mine in which dreams have become

a reality and a passion to share her good fortune and experience with others cornelia from cut a world renowned author from germany whose own story is still being written.

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play. this is news to live from birth len's britain wakes up to a new era after its official exit of the european union and a divided country the drawn out to force brings happiness to 1st. and heartbreak for the final settlement is far from clear. also coming up more and more countries about.